FIG. 1 depicts a side view of a portion a conventional HAMR disk drive 100. For clarity, FIG. 1 is not to scale. For simplicity not all portions of the conventional HAMR disk drive 10 are shown. The HAMR disk drive 10 includes media 12, a slider 15, a HAMR head 20, and a laser assembly 30. Although not shown, the slider 15 and thus the laser assembly 30 and HAMR transducer 20 are generally attached to a suspension (not shown). The HAMR transducer 20 includes an air-bearing surface (ABS) proximate to the media 12 during use. The HAMR transducer 12 includes a waveguide 22, write pole 24, coil(s) 26 and near-field transducer (NFT) 28. The waveguide 22 guides light to the NFT 28, which resides near the ABS. The NFT 28 focuses the light to magnetic recording media 12, heating a region of the magnetic media 12 at which data are desired to be recorded. High density bits can be written on a high coercivity medium with the pole 24 energized by the coils 26 to a modest magnetic field.
Although the conventional HAMR disk drive 10 functions, there are drawbacks. The pole 24 and NFT 28 include regions that are at the air-bearing surface (ABS). These regions may be surrounded by materials such as alumina and silica. The pole 24 and/or NFT 28 may inadvertently contact the media 12 or may come into contact with the media 12 during touchdown. As a result, structures in the HAMR transducer 12 may be subject to damage.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved HAMR transducer having improved robustness and/or reliability.